After a week of the godly elixir of cider, beer and blackcurrant known as snakebite being fed into me via intravenous drip, the odd bowl of curly chips, and regular exposure to some nice, slow, chilled out doom metal, I must admit I feel fully refreshed following the madness of gallery week.
Also, in a heavenly and totally conceptual burst of light the Tutors did come down from the kingdom of the Todd Building, and blessed me with a mark of 55% on my first semester's work. More snakebite and curly chips ensued.
I've also been reading some of HP Lovecraft's short stories, and filling my brain with the abstract and disturbing artwork of Dave McKean... Lovecraft is pure genius; despite the fact that his words no longer hold as much sway as they may have done when people genuinely thought the world was flat, I still immensely enjoy his stories of demons and monsters. McKean's illustrations have an unusual habit of getting under your skin; he works with ink, photos, collage, and oil paints, mashing media together and producing worlds and characters that surely stalk the dark places of the human consciousness.
I personally enjoy working a certain amount of humour and wit into my work, but McKean's drawings and short stories have helped me tap into my dark side a little... I think we share the same sense of humour. His short narratives, particularly in the book Pictures That Tick, are horrific, yet at the same time witty and beautiful. His annotations in between the stories don't bother with punctuation or capital letters, and so have a very spontaneous feel to them, like a train of thought that was written down.
Inspired by this, I had a bash at writing my own short story... it was completely instinctual, and a little dark, but it was good fun to write it. I had no idea how the story would end when I wrote it; I just made it up as I went along. Definitely going to try and be less organised from now on - I've found that planning my art just doesn't work for me.
I'll post up my story later; just need to spell-check it and stuff.
- Padfoot
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